Into the Rising Sun
The vicious and hungry sounds of battle roared back to life as my boots slapped against the muddy bottom of a foxhole. I’m not quite sure what was worse, the sudden rush of gunfire and explosions or the blinding pain that seared through what remained of my right hand. I was soaking wet and couldn’t tell if the liquid covering my arm was mud, blood or some combination of both. Although I could feel the blood run down my arm, it was far too dark to be able to even see my arm, let alone see what was on it, and the muzzle flashes all around me did nothing to pierce the black. I jammed my good hand into the medical bag (a bag that I had borrowed from a body that I crawled across) and dug around, more trying to remember what little medical care I had learned in basic than actually trying to find something. Not that it mattered, since the bag seemed to be nearly empty and full of wrapping, packaging and other shit the corpsman really should’ve thrown on the ground. When my hand brushed the tourniquet, my mind lit up with a half remembered thought. I’m not sure if it was from something that I learned in boot or if it was from a book I read back in high school, but it was a start. As I tried to tie the tourniquet one handed, a rifle went off behind me, which was immediately followed by the tell tale ping of an empty Garand. As I turned around, all I could think was, Thank fucking God! I finally knew where a friendly was and I could get out of the firefight. I raised my head over the top of the foxhole, prepared to make my move as quickly as possible. My hopes were quickly dashed when specks of dirt and mud were kicked up into my face and there was no retaliation from my fellow Marine. I slid my head back down below the rim of the hole, silently cursing as I resumed my butchering of the tourniquet. After “finishing” the haphazard excuse for a tourniquet, I dug back into the bag to find something to absorb the blood and hold it on. I found what felt like packages of cotton pads and gauze bandages and shifted them to the top of the pile of garbage in the satchel. I bit into the first package of what I hoped was a package of cotton in an attempt to open it. My mind raced. Everything just happened so fast and I really wasn’t sure how the hell I had ended up here at the bottom of a muddy foxhole in Saipan, desperately trying to bandage up my wounded hand. Maybe it was the blood loss, maybe it was the fatigue, maybe I was just delirious, but my tedious guard duty stateside and the flare that lit up this little slice of hell in the Pacific seemed like they were both simultaneously minutes ago and a lifetime away. My train of thought was abruptly brought to an end by the force of a boot viciously slamming into my hand, causing me to drop the cotton pads and sending sharp waves of pain up through my arm before radiating throughout my body. I began to howl in pain, but managed to almost completely silence myself by jamming my good hand into my mouth and biting down, letting only a few groans escape. I suddenly felt the hand of this newly arrived soldier brush against my shoulder and move its way towards my chest. I immediately shifted my left hand towards my knife, gritting my teeth as I tried to ignore the pain pulsating through my right hand. However I felt something else, something that tickled my neck. Cautiously, I reached up and touched it. Gauze. It was a roll of gauze; a new, dry roll of gauze. I quickly grabbed the roll in my hand and opened my mouth to utter a thank you only to flinch and duck as a salvo of rifle fire opened up on my right. I opened another package of cotton and wrapped the bandage as tightly as I could around the still tender chunk of my hand that was missing, I tried to think of some way to show my gratitude to the stranger with whom I now shared this foxhole as the incoming bullets kicked up mud and silenced the shooters beside me. I reached into the medical bag to grab some aspirin and silently cursed to myself. I still had some gauze left in the bag; although he didn’t know it, there was no reason the stranger should’ve given me anything. The battlefield went silent for a few seconds and I heard the man across from me groan as some cloth ripped. As the battle roared back to life I downed a couple aspirin pills and folded closed the opening of the package. I reached across the foxhole and placed the package against his chest. The man grabbed it and placed it against my chest a few seconds later. Temporarily ignoring the pain in my hand, I grabbed what was left of the C-ration I was eating before that flare shot up into the sky, which was just one of the shitty biscuits that came with the C-rations. I reached into the bag, pulled out some of the gauze I had left and reached out, flailing a bit trying to find the other body in the foxhole with me, hoping he would see the piece of flattened, mashed up, stale bread as a sign of appreciation. I looked at the slightly-darker-than-the-night-surrounding-us, vaguely human silhouette across from me in this mud pit and wondered what led him here to Hell’s Pocket. Was it the draft? Maybe some father encouraging his son to continue the family tradition? Was he fighting for God, country, apple pie and his girl back home or did he just land here after stumbling around in the dark? The concussive blast and deafening noise from a nearby grenade shook me clear of the past. I ripped off the horrendously done attempt at a tourniquet, it was uncomfortable and wasn’t remotely tight enough to even do anything anyway, and tossed it back into the medical bag. I laid my head back against the dirt and grinned. Another salvo of gunfire erupted, sending dozens of rounds buzzing over our heads like angry bees and I laughed to myself. Laughed at how I had enlisted to ensure a non-combat position instead of the front line duties that I was sure would come from the draft. Laughed at how a few months ago I’d be asleep in some barracks, dreaming about getting that one letter I always wanted to receive. Laughing at how I’m now sitting in a foxhole in the middle of a war zone with eight fingers and a bandaged hand. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flare go off in the sky, signaling another attack further down the line. The battle around us had begun to wind down and that distant flare hopefully signaled the end of the assault as focus shifted elsewhere. If any time was a good time for us to try to find our way back towards friendly lines, it was going to be soon. In between bursts of gunfire I could hear my partner groan again. I reached into the bag and reached out to hand him the pack of aspirin; if we were going to move, it was best for the both of us to be in as little pain as possible. My fist made contact with his rib cage. He had stood up! My partner was clearly ready to move, and soon. I rotated, facing the direction I thought he was facing and prepared to run. His hand landed on my shoulder, shaky yet still reassuring that we were going to make it. The closer the far away flare got to the ground, the more aggressive the distant pops and cracks became. As the few low lying bushes and trees that remained standing through all of the furious fighting began to cover up the slowly descending flare, the random bursts of fire from the dwindling battle quickly decreasing in frequency. Time seemed to freeze as the seconds passed by without nearby gunfire. I began to bounce on the balls of my feet, growing more and more eager to leap from this mud pit and dash to safety. He must have heard something that I didn’t, as my partner suddenly thrust me down. I quickly pivoted to avoid slamming onto my right hand. A rapid series of explosions echoed a handful of yards away and bullets immediately began to fly our way. More fire erupted behind us, spitting back at the aggressors. The deafening roar of gunfire sounded close, nearly right on top of us. As if to reinforce this statement the incoming bullets once again began to kick up dirt, only this time with much more ferocity. Every round seemed to come straight for us, desperately trying to dig their way through the dirt and plant themselves inside of our bodies. Even as the dragons that were spitting fire behind us began to withdraw, the anti-seeds continued to drill their way into the dirt, assisted by the concussive blasts of grenades trying to soften up the ground so they could get to us faster. There was nothing we could do but wait for something to plant itself and watch us die. Our bodies were locked, curled up on opposite sides of this pre-dug grave, too afraid to move, let alone stand up and accept our fates. I tried to scream, but those same forces that kept us pinned to the ground kept my mouth sewn shut. I closed my eyes and let the voices inside do the screaming for me. They screamed about Taylor’s letter that was surely waiting for me once I left the front lines. Screamed about enlisting after my friends had, lashed out at me for our desperate attempt to remain together after graduation. Screamed at me for abandoning Wyatt back home and for putting too much emphasis on what my elders thought about my future. Screamed at me that this was my fault; that I deserved to be here. They screamed that I deserved the anti-seed. Something hit my boot. I opened my eyes to see the muted colors of an early sunrise flowing into the foxhole and the only sound being the slight ringing in my ears. Something hit my boot again. I sat up and saw my friend from the night before sitting on the opposite side of the trench, his left arm adorned with a patch of the Rising Sun, looking at me. We both stood up, I glanced down at my hand, caked with blood and mud with a hint of yellow in the bandage. I took note of his limply hung, blood stained right arm and the friendly troops behind him slowly emerging from the smoldering tree line. My friend removed the knife from his belt and gripped it firmly. As I grabbed my knife I looked at his sad, apologetic eyes. I swallowed the lump in my throat and we both lunged forward.